


The Party

by etherealApostate



Series: Gravity Fails [5]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: M/M, ritual suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:46:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8258279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etherealApostate/pseuds/etherealApostate
Summary: In order to gain revelation into an adimensional existence that transcends physicality, Dipper Pines commits ritual suicide at a house party.





	

“This was a terrible idea,” Dipper muttered.

“What was that?” Bill said loudly. “Can’t hear you over the debauchery.”

“ _Bill._ They’re just _drinking_.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Bill said, skipping in front of Dipper as they descended the stairs. “Don’t’cha know what that shit does to a body? They’re getting all plastered and sweaty, I can just smell it.”

“This is going to go so fucking WRONG, I said!”

Bill’s smile dropped. “I know.” They paused at the foot of the stairs. “But you read it too. We need them. We need their _energy_.”

“That part of the text was corrupted and you know it.” Dipper let go of Bill’s arm; Bill grabbed his hand again immediately.

“Relax. We’ve got Lumberjack here. She’ll take care of any trouble. Besides,” and Bill lifted Dipper’s hand to his mouth, taking time to scrape the knuckles gently under his teeth before continuing, “It’s time we put on a show. Everybody who’s everybody here needs to know what’s up.”

“You were the one who wanted to keep this secret from Wendy.” Dipper turned his hand and hooked one finger under Bill’s front teeth. Bill sucked it obediently for a moment, then drew back to speak.

“But did you _see_ what that did to her? The Greeks had a word for this. It’s _deinos._ It’s—“

“Something so terrifying that it transcends into wonder. Yeah.” Dipper pulled his hand from Bill’s grip and ran it through his low brown bangs. “But that’s Wendy. She doesn’t have, well, she doesn’t have our kind of aspirations….”

“And neither will any other hunter in Gravity Falls, after tonight,” Bill said. “You’ll be a god.”

Dipper narrowed his eyes. “Or I’ll die before the rope’s even around my neck.”

“Aw, baby,” Bill said, and circled one arm around Dipper’s shoulders. “You know I won’t let that happen.”

“I’m tired of this,” Dipper said. He pushed Bill away and moved to the door. “First sign of trouble, I’m unloading ten rounds into the fucker who causes it.”

“I cannot _wait_.” Bill’s voice was especially silvery, and Dipper turned to look at him. They gazed at one another for a minute. Bill’s heart felt like it was coiled into a taut rope. This had to go well. This was everything he wanted for his Pine Tree. This was going to be so _beautiful_ ….

The sound of breaking glass came from outside. Dipper turned and left, sending a cold wave of outside air in Bill’s direction.

Bill slowly made his way to the door, then peered out. The situation looked manageable. Someone had broken a glass bottle on the porch; most people were milling around drunk on the lawn; he could see two teenage kids making out farther off, in the bushes.

Boy oh boy. He smiled to himself. Time for some trauma, kids!

When Bill exited the house, Lumberjack – Wendy, that is – was the first person he saw. She had her skinny frame curled in a rocking chair, and was sipping a beer.

He decided not to interact. She was more Dipper’s field of expertise. Instead, he settled in a rocking chair and observed the controlled chaos before him.

This was a shitshow already. He caught sight of Dipper, over by the keg, chatting to Gideon. Gideon was a hunter whom both of them disliked – Dipper for Gideon’s consistent use of summoned spirits to do his dirty work, and Bill for Gideon’s sloppy workmanship and rude manners during summonings.

As he watched, Pacifica glided up, stunning as ever in a loose faun-colored dress and dangling blue earrings. Bill raised his eyebrow, noting a change in behavior as soon as she got in Gideon’s line of sight. She was acting _drunker_.

Bill immediately realized what she was pulling, and leaned forward in his chair eagerly. Sure enough, in a few minutes, Pacifica pretended to sway a little and without further warning heaved a lavish wave of vomit onto Gideon’s shoulder.

Bill burst into hysterics as Gideon recoiled dramatically. Now that, that was quality humor! He knew there was a reason he’d invited Pacifica.

Then again, he considered, the wave of laughter fading from his face, she needed to see this as much as anyone else here did. As much as Dipper never wanted to consider it, Pacifica was dangerous. That episode with her _dear daddy_ had proved that.

The sun was just beginning to set, he noted – and twilight, symbolically speaking, was the best time of day for this kind of _revelation_.

He caught Wendy’s eye and jerked his head to the backyard. They exited.

“I don’t feel right about this,” Wendy said, as if to herself. Bill shrugged; he was fairly sure she paid him no mind.

They loaded the gallows onto the dolley. Bill had spent painstaking hours, weeks even, constructing them – pure ash wood, no metal joints, and a thick hemp rope. This had been his first foray into serious physical labor, and some days of it had left him almost as exhausted as the battle with the wendigo had, if much less injured.

Stone cold silence greeted them as they wheeled the gallows into the center of the yard, and the center of the twenty or so collected guests. Wendy almost punched one in the face for not getting out of the way.

Bill could amost hear Dipper’s heart palpitations as they settled the gallows and pushed the dolley away.

“Alright, Pine Tree,” Bill said loudly. “Time for the anointing!”

“What the _fuck_ is up here,” a stocky old man named Miles said.

“What this IS,” Bill said, striding to the center of the unever ring of guests, “Is my Pine Tree’s big debut. You’re getting a show, folks!” He pointed with his cane at Miles. “And if any of you get in the way of this, Lumberjack here’s got a nice _lead dessert_ for ya, everyone understand?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bill saw the teens at the edge of the circle hurry away into the underbrush.

“This—what are we, some kinda sacrifice?”

“Oh no,” Bill said. “See, Dipper here, my lovely, is going to be his own sacrifice.”

Miles shook his head, began to back up, then broke into a run down the long lane that lead up to the Mystery Shack. Wendy rolled her eyes, pulled a pistol from her jacket, and put one shot straight in Miles’ foot. Miles fell to the ground midstride, howling in pain.

“Anyone else wanna join ‘im?” Bill grinned widely at the assembled people, speaking loudly over the wounded man’s cries.

There was a general silence, but no movement.

“Alright, excellent.” Bill turned to Dipper. “Darling. The libations?”

Dipper nodded slowly, and reached under the table that had the keg on it. He drew out a milk-jug full of blood.

“Blood of a virgin,” Bill said, “And boy howdy are those hard to find nowadays!” He laughed. Gideon looked like he was going to faint.

Dipper approached the gallows, unscrewed the jug’s lid, and slowly began to pour the libations around the base. Bill could see Dipper’s lips moving, and knew he was muttering the incantations.

Yes. No matter how much he didn’t _like the idea_ , Pine Tree would always, always go through with something that could help get his dear, dear sister back.

The crowd watched with jaded fear. Wendy held her piece at the ready. Dipper looked up at the gallows, then back at Bill.

Bill stood still in awe for a moment, as he realized Dipper was _actually going to do it_ – then Bill stepped forward, stepped close, and knelt down.

“I’ll give you a boost to that necklace,” he said, his voice cracking a little.

Dipper smiled – again, the dark smile he got when he was so determined. He briefly ignored Bill’s proffered shoulders, and bent down.

“This better be worth it,” he said. His voice sounded drained.

“It will,” Bill promised, and Dipper saw something _human_ in Bill’s eye for the first time since they had met.

Dipper hesitated, then leaned down a little further, and brought Bill’s face up, and kissed it gently.

He started to pull away. Without thinking, Bill grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him close again.

“You’re not leaving me with _that_ ,” he said, and kissed Dipper, biting hard into his lip and breaking into the flesh.

Dipper sank slightly into the kiss, then pulled back and stood up and swallowed his own blood. There was a small scarlet smear on Bill’s lips. Dipper looked up and around, and his pounding heart pushed him over the edge.

He placed one foot on Bill and jumped up, grabbing the noose and grappling it around his neck.

Then, his airway already slightly constricted, he pulled his hands out from between the rope and his neck, and let the entire weight of his body pull the noose tighter and tighter and tighter.

 

Bill looked up once Dipper’s weight had left his shoulder. Bill’s eye shone – he felt that in this moment, he reflected the radiance of his lover, his friend, his victim – and he sat down on the grass directly beneath Dipper. His face was a yard from Dipper's  twitching feet. 

“Well, shit, if that’s over, I’m leaving,” a scruffy-looking kid in the back said some minutes later.

Bill reached into his jacket, retrieved his favorite pistol (the .44) and without a word turned and fired directly into the kid’s throat. He didn’t stay turned around to see the kid fall, but smiled dreamily up at Dipper’s swaying body as he listened to the gurgles behind him. Nothing would ruin this.

Dipper was silently starting to turn blue. The beautiful blood was pooling in his face as if begging to be released from its labyrinth of cells, and as he gasped for air, he lost control of his jaw. It twitched and fell open.

Bill was torn. Part of him was screaming, _cut him down, cut him down_ – but another, greater part was wedded to, aroused by, the grace of this particular death. A third part, somewhere deep, remembered that if this went well Dipper might not die at all.

The wind shifted and pushed Dipper’s body a hair to the side; he swung like a pendulum.

Suddenly, the gallows shook, and turned pure white – every bit of dark lignin immediately transformed – and then Bill didn’t know what had happened, but Dipper was on the ground, his face red, and gasping hoarsely.

Bill blinked. The moment between Dipper hanging and Dipper prone on the grass was simply – not there. He looked around for the first time. The remaining people wore similarly confused faces, and Bill could see a few muttering to one another.

“HEY! Quiet,” Bill said, and fired his pistol into the air. From the corner of his eye, he saw Dipper wince at the noise.

Then something happened. Dipper dragged himself into a sitting position and stared hard at the ground.

Bill turned to look at him full on, and saw instead a tree, and didn’t see a tree, both at the same time – and from the gasps he heard around him, he was not the only one.

Bill looked down beneath his feet and saw thousands of dark lines moving in the earth in the same manner. He saw and did not see; they were present and nonexistent.

Then he heard a cracking sound, and his head snapped up – the gallows! The gallows were splitting like dry wood might over years and years of time – and the vision was suddenly lost, and then the gallows came crashing down, and he only saw Dipper, mercifully unhurt amid the beams.

Bill wanted to clap like a child, but there were more pressing issues. Instead, he rushed to Dipper, who was curled in a fetal position, his damaged throat gurgling. Bill gathered him up into his arms.

“Dipper,” he whispered, bringing up one hand to trace the already-black bruises circling Dipper’s neck. So beautiful, such gorgeous pain.

Dipper winced and opened his eyes. Bill’s stomach immediately dropped – Dipper was looking _through_ him. No, no _no_ , Dipper had never done that before, this wasn’t right!

He felt a tap on the shoulder.

Wendy.

“Get him inside,” she said in a gruff voice. “With me and Pac. That, that guy you killed, that was a _stupid_ move, Bill.” She caught her breath. “That was Gideon’s hunting buddy. We need to barricade the house”

Bill nodded numbly, his arms already aching from Dipper’s weight. He walked trancelike to the door, as the rest of the people were still recovering from what they had just witnessed, and Wendy closed and bolted it behind him.

“There’s a basement. It’s fortified,” Bill foud himself saying. Wendy said something in response.

Bill hunched himself with some difficulty over Dipper’s face as she spoke. He didn’t care. Dipper looked halfway conscious, but slipping – the breathing was getting shallower, and the eyes were twitching less and less – and Bill found himself with his lips brushing Dipper’s forming three small words over them: “I need you.”


End file.
